Words on Page, Words on Screen

The 9th of February, 2026

There is some kind of brain healing magic done by writing out your thoughts on paper or screen; this magic is too seldom discussed online, so I’ve dragged you into my dungeon to talk about it for a few minutes.

There aren’t many modern venues for writing. Much of the popular internet content on social apps these days is short-form writing or short-form video; long gone are the days of expansive forum posts and things such as this. Sometimes, just writing 150 characters on a topic is adequate, but often you’ll find that you need time to flesh out your thoughts in a way that 150 characters simply can’t do.

I’m not trying to talk you into being a blogger, though. It’s not all about posting stuff online after all.

More so than posting your thoughts long-form online, journaling is greatly beneficial to the modern mind. Contemporary life is fast and so many things are battling for your attention these days; it’s of great benefit to sit down every week and just write about the things going through your brain. Write to yourself, for no one else. You don’t have to have some masterful incisive dialogue with yourself; no one else has to see it, but just simple things: how you’re feeling, what you got up to that week, what movies you watched, games you played, or even just how your workday was. Current technology has left us with sparse amounts of time to actually be alone with our thoughts, and doing something as simple as journaling gives you a bit of time to have a dialogue with yourself without your attention being pulled in some other direction, or being forced by your platform into brevity.

This kind of thing is writing as reflection, it’s like meditation. It pays even greater benefits to the writer than meditating, however. The future you will also reap benefits from this kind of activity. Having a ton of old diaries and journals is useful; sometimes it’s interesting to go back and see what you were thinking or doing 5 years ago without it being distorted by your memory or current biases.

I’ve also found writing letters to myself to be soothing. If you’re anxious about something coming up or unsure of how something in your life will turn out, it’s nice to sit down and write a letter to your future self discussing your feelings. Sometimes feelings stewing inside your head are nebulous, but when you write about them, they become clearer. I like to use a service called FutureMe for these letters to myself. Sometimes I’ll get an old letter from myself and think, “Wow, was I really worried about that?” It’s funny how your perspective shifts with time.

It doesn’t have to be a blog, it doesn’t even have to be something that anyone other than you ever sees, but put some words down on paper or on your favorite screen, and you’ll feel better if you do!